Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2011
Galaxy formation and evolution is one of the most challenging tasks in astrophysics.There is strongly increasing and substantial progress in this field not only due to theincrease of telescope size and developments of new techniques providing observationsallover the electromagnetic spectrum, but also the development of advanced computerarchitectures and of sophisticated numerical codes allow to tackle this problem from bothsides and to link both research approaches to a fruitful progress in astrophysics. Thisreview will not focus on the application of a single numerical method and the descriptionof its result, but is instead aiming at providing an overview of different numerical toolson the basis of particle and grid schemes and to referring to important publications forthe intersted reader.